23l Batches With A 15l Pot?

[mb83]

Hi Folks,

I'm a recent convert to All Grain brewing.
My two AG brews so far have been half batch 10-15L BIAB jobs, but I would now like to brew full-sized 23L batches.

My problem is I only have a 15L stock pot and I can't afford a bigger one yet.

Could I get around this by simply mashing grain for 23L of beer with 15L of water and then topping the cooled wort in the fermenter up with cooled boiled water to make up 23L ?

Has anyone else tried this?
I'm mashing in a bag in a 26L eski. Anyone know the max amount of grain I can mash in an eski of this size?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Cheers,

Michael

 

[braufrau]

Hi Folks,

I'm a recent convert to All Grain brewing.
My two AG brews so far have been half batch 10-15L BIAB jobs, but I would now like to brew full-sized 23L batches.

My problem is I only have a 15L stock pot and I can't afford a bigger one yet.

Could I get around this by simply mashing grain for 23L of beer with 15L of water and then topping the cooled wort in the fermenter up with cooled boiled water to make up 23L ?

Has anyone else tried this?
I'm mashing in a bag in a 26L eski. Anyone know the max amount of grain I can mash in an eski of this size?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Cheers,

Michael

I asked the same question a while ago and the answer was "efficiency will suck" so I continue
with partials.

But I wonder how much it would suck.

Maybe you could try doing 15L worth of mashing, then 18L worth, 21L etc. and see where it gets bad.
Of course it would depend on how much you were mashing. Tripels would prolly be out.

 

[gregb]

I've read of people doing a two part boil in smaller pots. Basically split the recipe to two 11.5 batches and combine in fermenter. Time consuming but should work.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[Thirsty Boy]

mb83

If you are mashing in an eski anyway... you could sparge by heating up water in your kettle, then just doing a bit of swapping around with a bucket before you drained wort to your kettle.

Mash in eski - drain to bucket - batch sparge in eski - drain to kettle - top up kettle from bucket.

So if you get yourself a nice food grade bucket, then your mash tun capacity isn't part of the problem. Your only issue is your pot.

You could split the boil between two pots which would be a PITA but would work fine. Or you could try doing a "High Gravity" wort, which is what you suggested with using all the grain for a full batch, but topping up wih water later.

The trouble with this is that from the things I have read and some people I have spoken to, the concentrated wort may well lead to less good beer. Hop utilisation will go down and there is more chance of overdeveloping melanoidins in your wort... a few things. If you look at some of the US sites where more people do "extract" brewing where they are boiling their extract; one of the usual pieces of advice on "how to improve my beer" is to move away from a concentrated boil to a full boil.

And in your situation... you would also be cutting down drastically on the amount of water available to wash out your sugars, either in a sparge or in the BIAB situation. So as Braufrau said, your efficiency would probably go down considerably.

But then again... it might work. I like Braufrau's suggestion of creeping up on it with increasing volumes and seeing what happens.

Or you could just brew twice. You dont have to completely finish on ebefore starting the other. You'll still need a separate bucket though.

Your normal 11.5 Ltire batch Mashing in the eski, strike water for the next batch heating in your kettle, Pull bag and tip wort into bucket, transfer water from kettle to eski, transfer wort to kettle and put the heat on it, while its heating to a boil, mash in the new batch, while its boiling, mash you r next batch, pull the bag, and transfer wort to bucket, clean eski, when batch #1 is finished boiling, transfer it back to the eski to keep hot while you boil batch 2, boil, combine batches and cool or no-chill as per normal..... or something like that.

Good Luck

Thirsty

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Wot they sed, or even a slight variation thereof...

Brew small batch, chill (or NoChill), turf into fermenter and pitch yeast. Brew another batch as soon as you reasonably can, chill (or NoChill) and turf that on top of the first one. If you got the two in on the same day, you wouldn't have any oxidation issues because your yeast will still be in their aerobic phase.

A large microbrewery based in Richmond does this as their newer fermenters are several multiples of their boiler in size. I keep forgetting the name of a Belgian brewery that empties brews into the fermenter on days 1, 2 and 4 or something like that.

Your biggest challenge as I see it would be to ensure the temperature of the second batch doesn't drift the temperature of the fermenting batch too much, so your chilling regime would require a little care.

 

[Plastic Man]

The yanks call splitting the boil The Texas Two Step Method. Do a google on this and add in a few words like beer and brew, (or you get dance web sites !!), and a fair bit comes up. Do a search on BYO web site as well as its mentioned in the mag a fair bit.

Heres one: http://cryptobrewology.com/show-article.ph..._Texas_Two-Step

Also in the BYO site look up an article on Countertop Partial Mashing. This can be modified for small batch AG brewing or by doing a split boil, 20l batch brewing. Its basically what you are doing now but Chris Colby gives some numbers that may help.

 

[crozdog]

As mentioned you can make a higher gravity wort & dilute it. From memory a 15l 1056 wort dilutes to around 1045 with the addition of 5l water. Use beersmith or promash to do the dilution calcs. Also use em when you work out your recipe to determine hoping rates

 

[jpbirbeck]

if you want a cheap option, go to Go-Lo/The warehouse/cheap as cheaps and pick up a 18.9 l pot for $20 and have two boils on the go.

I have a 19l pot and a 9l pot which I use to do full AG batches, a bit of shuffling and a bit of a pain but it works and eff is good.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

if you want a cheap option, go to Go-Lo/The warehouse/cheap as cheaps and pick up a 18.9 l pot for $20 and have two boils on the go.

I have a 19l pot and a 9l pot which I use to do full AG batches, a bit of shuffling and a bit of a pain but it works and eff is good.

I bought one of these from The Warehouse. I took it back the next day when I determined (from a measuring tape plus maths and a calibrated measuring jug) that it only held 16.5 litres.

Caveat Brewer.

 

[afromaiko]

I bought one of these from The Warehouse. I took it back the next day when I determined (from a measuring tape plus maths and a calibrated measuring jug) that it only held 16.5 litres.

Caveat Brewer.

Yes! I have a < $20 very thin 19 litre pot that I bought from Big W that I am suspicious of the capacity too.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

As mentioned you can make a higher gravity wort & dilute it. From memory a 15l 1056 wort dilutes to around 1045 with the addition of 5l water. Use beersmith or promash to do the dilution calcs. Also use em when you work out your recipe to determine hoping rates

So is it possible to brew all grain with final volume of 23 litres brewing in a 19 litre pot in one batch? Eg 3.5kg grain bill mashed in 12 litres, sparge with 3litres. Boiled and hopped cooled in a sink, transfer to fv and topped up with cold water to 23 litres or to the OG your looking for?

 

[MHB]

I doubt it, for one the total amount of available extract in 3.5kg of malt is about 2.66kg at 100% efficiency, you are more likely to be getting around 75-80% of that so at 80% about 2.1kg at best. If you dissolved that in 23l your OG would be 1.036 (ish) at a maximum. You need more malt!
Second, mashing heavy (low water to grain ratios) will result in a less fermentable wort. Mucking around with the traditional vessel sizes and L:G will change the beer often in ways you aren't expecting.

Way better to make around 15L of wort in a 23L pot than the reverse.
Thirsty (much missed) covered the options pretty well.
These days when I brew at home I'm making 10-12L BIAB batches in a 20L pot, its a simple process that gives good results and you could set up the same for around $30-40, do too brews and combine or get two pots and bags....

There is just no ubertight way to make good beer
Mark

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I've seen some recipes that have 2.5kg grain plus a 1.5kg liquid malt extract prepared in a 19litre pot producing around 22 litres to ferment, just wondered if anyone had any success doing it that way?

 

[Yuz]

I've seen some recipes that have 2.5kg grain plus a 1.5kg liquid malt extract prepared in a 19litre pot producing around 22 litres to ferment, just wondered if anyone had any success doing it that way?

I've done a few partials using (shock horror) 12L Alu pot. BIAB in a small esky > into the pot, hops etc boil. Sparge into a small HDPE bucket, top up pot to evaporation losses. MaxiBIAB source here: https://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=352&start=0
1.7 Coopers Lager (which is pretty much LME with little hops) mixed up in the fermenter with water to about 16L.
After boil, pot goes in the sink to cool down, then mixed with the wort in the fermenter. Not for ideal but I'm limited for space and funds... I aim for 26-28L (Saurus). Turns out pretty good to my tastes. But eventually I will do full-scale BIAB.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I've done a few partials using (shock horror) 12L Alu pot. BIAB in a small esky > into the pot, hops etc boil. Sparge into a small HDPE bucket, top up pot to evaporation losses. MaxiBIAB source here: https://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=352&start=0
1.7 Coopers Lager (which is pretty much LME with little hops) mixed up in the fermenter with water to about 16L.
After boil, pot goes in the sink to cool down, then mixed with the wort in the fermenter. Not for ideal but I'm limited for space and funds... I aim for 26-28L (Saurus). Turns out pretty good to my tastes. But eventually I will do full-scale BIAB.

That's a really interesting link you included there Yuz, my only question is how he got 19litre of wort to boil on his kitchen stove, I have a double ring wok burner on our stove and it just managed to boil about 15litres of wort. But at least I know that it could be possible to AG 23litres from a 19l pot in one batch.